


Communication

by NotEvenThat



Series: Canon Based Fics [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec is a good boyfriend, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Communication... Eventually, Downworlder Descrimination, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Magnus isn't okay, Magnus's POV, Ragnors Death, S2E10, Takes place after 'By the Light of Dawn', The Downworlder Registry, The Malec Fight, post 2x10, uncontrollable magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 03:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenThat/pseuds/NotEvenThat
Summary: It didn't matter if Alec hadn't meant to upset him. Ragnor was dead. Valentine was back. The Clave wanted to document Downworlders, like they were cattle. Magnus was breaking down and he needed Alexander to leave before he really lost it.Or how I think the Malec fight will go in 2B.





	Communication

**Author's Note:**

> I made a post talking about what I wanted out of the Malec fight and then I got home and couldn't stop thinking about it, so here.

The loft shook as Magnus slammed the door and stalked inside. His hands were sparking and the wards surrounding his home quivered with the anger that Magnus was trying to contain.

 _I’m being irrational,_ he thought to himself and he knew that it was true but that didn’t stop the anger from boiling in his body, until it was all he could feel. _Alec didn’t mean to upset you._ It didn't matter. Magnus was shaking and his rings dug painfully into his hands as he tightened them. He wanted to make a drink. He wanted to leave. He wanted to throw Alexander out. He wanted to cry.

Magnus wanted to do so many so things. He wanted to go find Valentine. He wanted to go get the sword. He wanted to find his spell book. He wanted to go see Ragnor but he couldn’t do any of those things, not right now, some of them not ever again.

 _You’re the High Warlock of Brooklyn,_ Magnus thought to himself and the thought rang synonymous with so many other things that were true. _You need to protect them. You need to stay calm. You need to be their leader. You need to be okay._

He wasn’t though. Magnus wasn’t okay. He’d already gone through it once. He’d already watched so many of his friends die awful, awful deaths at the hands of people who despised them. He’d watched children being tortured. He’d watched the Clave turn him away and talk down to him, refusing to acknowledge what was happening, even when their own people were being slaughtered along with them.

And now _this._ Now, it was happening again. Now, Valentine had the sword, with the power to destroy all of them without even lifting a finger and the _Clave._ They didn’t care. They acted as if they did to maintain the Accords but Magnus knew. They would rather Valentine find a way to ignite the sword. They would rather every Downworlder be wiped out.

Now, Ragnor was dead. _Ragnor._ The man who’d been there for Magnus since he was seventeen. The man who’d taught him how to control his magic. The man who’d taken Magnus in, even when Magnus lashed out at him. The man who’d gone with him to Peru and London and carried Magnus home when he got too drunk. The man who’d hid him from the Clave, the first time Magnus had upset them and thought his world was ending. He was dead and nothing about this whole scenario felt more wrong than that. Ragnor was older than Magnus, wiser and grumpier and he was going to continue to be that way until the stars fell out of the sky and Magnus himself stopped seeing the beauty in the world. He was going to be there with Magnus for as long as Magnus’s journey took him. Anything else was _wrong._

And now this, not even a week after the sword had killed countless Downworlders, the Clave wanted to make a _registry._ They wanted Downworlders to register themselves like they were animals, like they were objects being placed in inventory. And, of course, they hadn’t listened to Magnus’s concerns. They hadn’t listened at all when Magnus told them how danger that was, to have a system of every Downworlder, where they lived, how old they were, what their weaknesses were.

‘The only people who would have access to it would be Clave members and selected Nephilim soldiers,’ As if _that_ made it better. As if the Clave wasn’t made up of the most prejudice and downright evil people that the Nephilim had. Not to mention how _infallible_ the Clave had made them. Even if a member of the Clave outright slaughtered a Downworlder, they had amnesty. It didn’t matter what the other side was, they were a Clave member and thats all any of the Nephilim needed to hear to choose which side had been in the wrong.

And then _Alexander,_ ‘just refused to register.’ As if the Clave didn’t already have the means to do it themselves, even if they refused to cooperate. As if that made what the Clave was doing any more acceptable. As if refusing to cooperate wasn’t going to be take as a sign of war from the Nephilim. As if their lack of cooperate wasn’t ground for the Clave to decide to kill them. _‘_ Shadowhunters are being slaughtered,’ As if Downworlders hadn’t been tortured and killed for _centuries_ at the hands of the Clave. As if it only mattered now, now that the tables were turned and Shadowhunters were dying along with Magnus’s people.

“Magnus..” He didn’t turn. If he did, he was going to start screaming or crying and right now, he didn’t want to do either of those things. Right now, he wanted Alexander to leave. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t meant to upset him. It didn’t matter if Magnus was being irrational. Alec was a _Shadowhunter._ He didn’t get it. It didn’t matter how empathetic he was, he was never going to understand what it was like to live as a Downworlder. He was never going to understand what Magnus’s had gone though. He was never going to understand what it was like to live in a time when Shadowhunters had stalked and killed Downworlders for fun.

“Get out.” Magnus tightened his hand on the stone countertop and stared as his magic flared out, cracking the cold stone under his fingers.

“Magnus.. Please. Don’t push me away.”

Magnus took in a harsh breath and turned, his magic pounding through his veins, erratic, angry and out of control. Alec was standing in the doorway, his hands limp at his sides, staring at Magnus with a soft delicate expression of worry.

Magnus took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes again, his glamor had fallen down. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Even that simple sentence came out through clenched teeth. His words sounded harsh and unrelenting but Magnus was too far gone in his own emotions to care. “I don’t want to see you right now.” If Magnus had been in any other mental state, he would have found a different way to say it. He would have spared Alexander's feelings and said it gently. It was the truth, though. Magnus didn’t want to see him right now. They could talk and reconcile tomorrow, when Magnus had calmed down and found a way to piece together everything he was feeling in a way that he could explain to Alec. Tonight though, Magnus looked at him and saw a Shadowhunter who was never going to understand why Magnus was upset. “Get out.”

Neither of them moved for a moment and then Magnus looked up at him again, the anger in his body already starting to give way to sorrow. His eyes were glossy and if Alexander stayed for a moment longer Magnus was going to start crying. “Please, Alec. Please- just leave.”

He did and the next day, when Magnus woke up to Alec’s face vibrating on his phone, he answered. And moments later, when Alexander showed up on his door step, carrying Magnus’s favorite tea, they talked. Not about the war at first. Not about the Clave, Valentine or the registry but just about Alec’s experience, alone in a mundane coffee shop, struggling to order what Magnus liked.

They talked and Magnus remembered what he had seen in Alexander in the first place. A boy, who didn’t understand where Magnus came from at all, but was willing to listen.

And that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope no one comments talking about Magnus being a bad boyfriend.  
> I get it, people want Magnus and Alec to be happy all the time, but with everything going on, thats unrealistic. Even if the actual fight isn't about this, Magnus and Alec need to talk about it at some point. Shadowhunters have been killing Downworlders for centuries and they still are.  
> Alec is too young to know what it was like for Magnus, living when Downworlders had literally no rights. It's unrealistic to think that there would never be conflict about it, even as accepting and open minded as Alec is about Downworlders.  
> Anyway, I don't mean to rant but if you're going to comment mad at Magnus in any way, please just don't. Otherwise, please comment!


End file.
